#'she got to throw out dukat though' CONSIDER THAT MAYBE SHE DIDN'T NEED TO BE RAPED AT ALL

[trillscienceofficer]

(I know you didn't sign on to become the 'Kai Winn discourse blog', so I hope you don't mind me jumping into this discussion) but something I find odd is when people say the reason they *hate* Winn is that they know people like her IRL, but Dukat is just a sci-fi fascist, so they don't relate him to real life at all. Kai Winn is reduced to stereotypes yet Dukat is put on this opposite pedestal of 'he's so evil that no one in real life is like that, therefore I can ironically enjoy him because it's so far removed from reality' and I just don't get it. It's a perspective that feels so far removed from (at least from my) reality. Like sorry, but there's *plenty* of people in real life like Dukat. (I mean, I think setting up some sort of dichotomy between the characters is inherently reductive, but people treat them so differently it's hard not to see misogyny as a huge factor here. It's just so bizarre to see constantly.)

yeah, I've said in one post I've made about Dukat that even in my experience he's just a very common type of guy? I come from Italy and let me tell you... petty, slimy tyrants like Dukat are just dime a dozen in the so-called 'patria'. I think it's silly to pretend that Dukat is far removed from reality, and it goes against what DS9 was trying to say imho. Dukat isn't a 'special Cardassian', he's just a guy who isn't afraid to step on anyone's neck if it'll allow him to stay afloat. And also isn't afraid to rape Bajoran women as soon as he can get away with it.

Which brings me to my next point, about the general questions on 'why is Winn so vilified in comparison to Dukat'. There's a really interesting discussion in the replies of my previous post, and I recommend reading it but in short I think this attitude towards Winn starts already in the show. DS9 went out of its way to humiliate Winn in specifically gendered ways; by having Dukat rape her (a guy who is a serial rapist of Bajoran women specifically), by having her die painfully after having everything stripped away from her, and her death is ultimately meaningless unless you frame it as her 'just punishment'. Dukat in comparison gets to have an 'epic fight' against the show's protagonist (even if I think that storyline is so fucking stupid, it's still an epic fight.)

And so I think people are primed to feel like propping up Dukat and wanting to humiliate Winn further, by directly comparing her to him as being so much more deserving of punishment, it's just no big deal because it already happened in the show after all. But by doing so they're making it so much worse. Folks, that is a genuinely disturbing part of the show, it's never been good, Winn was mishandled so badly by the final episodes of DS9. There's something very sinister in insisting to not recognize that and wanting to hand even more punishment on Winn. Ask yourselves: why? Why do you feel like your violent fantasies are justified on her? Didn't DS9 already do enough to her?